Collaboration events such as videoconferences can occur over a data network (such as, for example, the Internet, wide area networks or local area networks). During some such events, multiple users may be sharing video, audio and other data with multiple other users. Typically, users communicate in this way by each connecting to at least one of a plurality of conference servers. The conference servers are also interconnected, which therefore provides each user with a communication connection to each other user (i.e., by using the conference servers as a link). As such, videoconferences are typically conducted over a conference server or bridge. Indeed, all attendees connect to the server, and the server routes audio and video data between the users.
Typically, users connect to a bridge by establishing a connection through a port on the bridge. Since the bridge is maintained on the server and the user connects from outside the server, the port on the bridge is configured as an external port (meaning it can receive requests originating from outside the server). However, since these ports receive external data, they are highly susceptible to malicious data. Firewalls and other regulatory hardware or software solutions are often used to minimize these risks. However, it is often difficult to configure firewalls in such systems, particularly given that there are multiple external ports to configure and that the number of external ports changes as new bridges are added to or removed from the conference servers. These and other problems may be particularly acute in large scale conference systems where there is a plurality of servers and each has a plurality of bridges utilizing an external port.